Taipei - A Boeing 747-400 jetliner of Taiwan's major carrier China Airlines was hit by severe air turbulence on its way from Hong Kong to Bangkok Thursday, resulting in the injury of 21 people, the airlines said.

"Flight CI 641 arrived in Bangkok safely, and the injured, including, 5 crew members and 16 passengers, received hospital treatment," the airlines said in a news statement.

A total of 147 passengers and 18 crew members were on board the plane when the turbulence occurred without warning over Thai airspace, the airline said.

Taipei  - Police in southern Taiwan are looking for a man who rode his motorbike naked through a city's main streets for one hour, TV reports said Tuesday.

The man, aged between 30-40, rode a motorbike in Tainan City for about one hour on Monday in a light drizzle caused by typhoon Jangmi, cable TV channel TVBS and ETTV reported. He wore only a crash helmet.

Although a lot of people stayed home because of the typhoon, many saw him and took photos with their cell phone cameras, TVBS said.

TVBS broadcast a video clip which showed the man riding a motorbike and sometimes honking the horn.

Taipei - Taiwan stocks dropped nearly 6 per cent in mid-morning trading Tuesday, due to Wall Street falls caused by the US Congress failing to to pass the 700-billion-US-dollar bank rescue package.

The Taiwan stock market dropped 400 points after opening at 9 am, despite Taiwan government unveiling an emergency plan to stabilize the bourse earlier on Tuesday.

Two hours into the session, the TAIEX had fallen 324.81 points, or 5.48 per cent, to 5,604.82 points.

Taipei - Typhoon Jangmi left two people dead, two missing and 58 injured when it slammed Taiwan over the weekend, the country's disaster centre said on Monday.

An 18-year-old woman motorcyclist in Taichung County died when an electric wire broken by the wind snapped her off the bike. She died from the injuries.

Also in Taichung County, an 82-year-old man going for a haircut was blown off his motorbike by strong winds and drowned in a flooded rice paddy, the centre said.

A total of 58 people were injured across the island, many hit by fallen signboards or cut by fallen glass.

The typhoon caused severe damage to agriculture as large areas of crops and vegetables were inundated by floods.

Taipei - Typhoon Jangmi lashed Taiwan with powerful winds and torrential rains Sunday, forcing a standstill in domestic air traffic and some railway services.

The typhoon packed center winds of up to 184 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 227 kilometres per hour, making landfall in the north-eastern county of Ilan in the afternoon, the Central Weather Bureau said.

The bureau said the typhoon was expected to dump up to 1,400 millimetres of rain on the island.

Local authorities moved more than 1,000 residents after the Council of Agriculture issued a warning for 247 areas likely to be threatened by mud- and rock-slides, officials said.

Taipei - Taipei on Saturday held Asia's largest gay pride march to demand equal rights for homosexuals, transsexuals and transgender people.

Braving showers brought on by Typhoon Jangmi, an estimated 18,000 people - including representatives from gay rights groups in foreign countries - marched through the main streets of Taipei.

The marchers displayed a 90-by-4.5-metre rainbow flag - the symbol of the gay rights movement - and waved placards to call for equal rights for gay people.

Wang Ping, organizer of the march, which is in its ninth year, said the turn-out was bigger than 2007.